Monday, October 20, 2008

Bet Size Matters - Part 2

Posted April 6th, 2008 by phillau

Hi all, I won I won! Well, to be exact, another good player and I chopped the pot evenly when it got down to Heads-Up, as we had almost the exact same amount of chips and we both wanted to head for the cash game. Anyways, not a bad payday for me.

I want to talk more about how bet size matters in poker, and if it's not treated with care it could serve as a very big tell for your opponents. I was sitting at the table and we were down to 8 handed. I was holding AcKc so time to get my feet wet! I raised to 90, which was the standard 3xBB. The guy on the button called, and we headed to the flop. Flop showed 5c6c9h. Not ideal but definitely got potential. I was first to act and I checked. Button bet 100, and I raised to 250. The check-raise move was well within my agenda, as I expected the guy to be only on high cards. To my surprise, Button reraised all-in. That, was out of expectation. I took my time and tried to see how far he might be ahead. Obviously he wouldn't already have a made hand or he would be smooth-calling my raise to set his trap. So no straight. Two pairs or a set? Didn't smell like it. So whatever else he had, I had 15 outs. That's pretty decent. I announced I CALL. Yup, with the Ace High. Time for the show-down, and to my pleasant surprise, Button showed 34o! He was on a stupid straight draw. Super. The turn's a blank while the 7c hit the river. He made his straight but at the same time I made my flush! That was pretty sick but I mean, that's the beauty of having closing out people's outs. The point here is, if he hadn't shoved all-in on the flop and just called, he could've made a move on the turn and that I was sure to have laid down. Bet size matters people, bigger isn't always better.

Now that I'm done with recapping, it's time to look forward to the next one. There'll be a tournament in Hong Kong this coming Saturday (April 12) at 7pm, and it's a rebuy tourny. Please check it out here and make sure you sign up cuz it's gonna be a great game: http://poker.meetup.com/1197/calendar/7683208/ . *UPDATE* This is now a $15k HKD guaranteed tourny!

p.s. On the Heads-Up Challenges, I lost the NLHE/NLCP Heads-Up to BrianL, and I still haven't got around to playing the one with Vikram. Good job Brian!